It Matters: Reference Indicator Selection in Measurement Invariance Tests

Abstract

Conventional approaches for selecting a reference indicator (RI) could lead to misleading results in testing for measurement invariance (MI). Several newer quantitative methods have been available for more rigorous RI selection. However, it is still unknown how well these methods perform in terms of correctly identifying a truly invariant item to be an RI. Thus, Study 1 was designed to address this issue in various conditions using simulated data. As a follow-up, Study 2 further investigated the advantages/disadvantages of using RI-based approaches for MI testing in comparison with non-RI-based approaches. Altogether, the two studies provided a solid examination on how RI matters in MI tests. In addition, a large sample of real-world data was used to empirically compare the uses of the RI selection methods as well as the RI-based and non-RI-based approaches for MI testing. In the end, we offered a discussion on all these methods, followed by suggestions and recommendations for applied researchers.